One of the things I found most different about Europe, among many, was the fact that you are allowed to drink anywhere - not to mention buy drinks anywhere. If this policy was introduced here to eager Atlantic Canadians, after all hell broke loose for awhile, I believe it would eventually lose the obscene appeal we think it has when we visit these far off places, and create a society better off for it.
It’s funny, although you can buy beer anywhere, even Macdonald’s in some countries; there is the same amount, if not less, people who are walking around belligerently drunk. I didn’t really think about this strange observation until we got to Norway, which essentially had the same liquor laws as Canada. There, we had a discussion about how Norwegians love to drink, like here, as a means to being more socially comfortable.
I don’t mean socially comfortable as in needing to have a drink when everyone else is having one, I mean getting drunk, inducing behaviour that at the time seems comfortable to enact socially, but later can make things very uncomfortable.
In other areas of Europe, this does not appear to be the case. You rarely see a drunken Frenchman staggering around blasting obscenities, which seems strange considering they are allowed to drink wherever they want and buy liquor anywhere they want; at almost any time of night…not to mention it is at least half the price in most places.
I thought about it and started thinking that maybe this is because drinking is not considered taboo there. It is more socially accepted without laws preventing where you can buy it, where you are allowed to consume it, and so on. So at a young age, perhaps you don’t necessarily think it rebellious to illegally obtain and consume alcohol to have fun. Perhaps in this type of upbringing, the youth are less susceptible to thinking one can’t have fun on his or her own, without the aid of this otherwise rebellious substance.
Thinking back to my own youth and even now, I feel I would be much less likely to drink excessively if it never had been considered a social cog in the life that is trying to fit in as a teenager. I feel if you were allowed to say, drink a beer in the park at your leisure, perhaps one would be less likely to sit at home where it is legal and consume as many as possible without the “cops” being able to do anything about it - sticking it to the man by killing your brain cells in the privacy of your own home - because doing it anywhere else would be illegal.
Maybe this would increase drunk driving? Perhaps, but Europe has no more of a problem with drunk drivers than North America does. In fact, one could argue that because people are actually drinking less, fewer accidents would occur, because people are going to drive drunk anyway.
Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps that is what our government is keen on. We seem to consume more that way, and all while paying much more for it than people in Europe do. It doesn’t cost more to make here, so where does the access of the inflated price go? Into the pockets of the government, who regulate the liquor stores themselves.
I bet if our regulations on alcohol mimicked what they currently are in Europe, there would actually be less alcoholism in the long run, because it would be more accepted to just have a beer you bought at the corner store on your way home from work, instead of having to buy an 8-pack. I mean, considering you had to go all the way to the liquor store, why just buy one?
Tags: Beer, Europe, Liquor laws, public drinking
